Lucas was called into the mansion, he was being led by a maid of the baron to a certain room. This room had three desks, presumably those of Venion and the two students. The curtains were closed so that the room was only lit by a single lantern on Venion's desk. The flame in the lantern had a green hue and lit up the room in a strange, unusual color.
When he entered, he saw a child of around his age, but a bit younger. He had the same hair color as his father, nothing special. His clothes were extravagant, and he had an air of importance, or at least, that was what he wanted. Looking slightly upwards so that he could look down on others, he didn't even bother to look at Lucas. With every single hair on his head being in a specific place, so his hairstyle would be perfect. To Lucas, he looked like a snob, a loser almost.
'He almost literally looks like a puppet, the poor bastard', Lucas didn't say anything to him after seeing his posture and simply sat down in front of the other desk.
"So you're that commoner that accidentally awakened, and now you're acting all-important, disgusting." the self-centered kid said.
'I'm the reason why you're even here dumbass' Lucas thought, but he followed Liam's advice of not antagonizing him. Not taking any risks, or just not wanting to waste energy he stayed silent and looked around the room. "Are you ignoring me now?!" the kid yelled toward Lucas while spouting a few more derogatory words, but it didn't do anything to Lucas. After what he had been through, a few words were but air.
Luckily Venion came inside which shut the kid up. Not because he was afraid of the mage, but rather out of respect. "Master Venion, thank you for teaching me."
"Don't worry, it's in my contract to teach. Now then, Lucas, I assume you have already met Robert, he's the son of the baron. You both must be curious about the way magic works. That's what I'll teach to you in these lessons. Now before we start, do you know how many elements there are?"
Lucas didn't know a whole lot about the theoretical side of magic, but he had a very good feeling about it through the experiments. Robert quickly stuck his hand in the air and said without waiting "There are 6 elements.".
"That's correct, do you know also know which ones?"
"There are 3 couples, earth and air, water and fire, and light and darkness."
"Correct again, these elements are the basics that are found all over this world. Aurora is filled with energy that can be changed into those elements. Now you both should be capable of visualizing your core, tell me what you see."
Being correct again, Robert's ego grew a bit bigger, seeing that Lucas stayed quiet he felt a lot better. Robert told Venion that he had a red and brown core, feeling proud that he got two colors instead of one.
"I have a yellow core." Lucas didn't want to mention that there was a speck of darkness as well, knowing that dark magic was forbidden, having a partially dark core couldn't be a good thing.
"What?" Robert was shocked that Lucas had a rare core.
'How can a lowly commoner and orphan even get such a special core, why don't I have that one, this isn't fair?!'
Venion was happy to have a complete light core among his pupils. "You see Robert, you can know that he has a yellow core from looking at his hair and pupils. When a core has a very powerful presence in the body it can alter certain aspects."
Robert looked toward Lucas, seeing his bright yellow irises and blond hair, but he couldn't be amazed by the revelation. He was still angry that someone lesser than him got a rare core.
The lesson continued and they learned what the colors of the core meant. Having a certain color makes you talented in the corresponding element. The core can offer a certain amount of proficiency in total for all the colors that the core consists of. Meaning that if you have a single color, you'll become very proficient in that single element. While if you had two colors you'll grow a bit faster in both, but not comparable to a single color core.
"So for you two, Lucas will be very capable in Light magic and Robert will be capable in fire and earth magic."
Feeling that his core was better than Lucas' because he had two elements he could put his anger a bit to rest. He was still annoyed that Lucas had a more special core though.
"Energy that mages can interact with in the air is made out of magicules, we passively collect the magicules in the air inside of our core. The energy inside of our core is called mana, which we then use to create magic using certain words. These words have a strange connection to the world and can manipulate the mana to create miracles. For example; s̸͍͛ö̴͕l̷̹̆"
After Venion said that word, neither Lucas nor Robert could understand it in the slightest. But a shining light came out of Venion's hand, it lit up the entire room outshining the lantern. What was strange was that Lucas quickly stored that rune in his mind, seemingly merging with his thoughts. He would never forget that rune, 'So that's the reason why the color matters.'
"This simple rune allows you to forcibly create a set result, you cannot alter the outcome, this is a form of classic magic. Later I'll tell you about advanced magic, first you need to succeed in pronouncing the runes correctly."
And so the lesson continued, Lucas was a lot more talented in light, so he quickly succeeded in creating the same light, which attracted the anger of Robert. The pronunciation took a lot of tedious work to figure out the right pitch and sounds. When he pronounced the rune correctly he felt mana leave his core and go down a certain pathway. The pathway ended at his palm, when the mana left his body through that gateway there was a small ball of light. 'Isn't it smaller than that of Venion? Shouldn't it be the same size?'
Venion saw his questioning look and freed him of his insecurities, "The rune takes a certain amount of your total mana in the core, so everyone's magic should be the same right? Wrong, when you reach a higher rank or have access to a source of energy that is made out of higher quality, you can improve the spells. Think of it as this, when you use your resources to create a wooden sword, I can make the exact same but out of iron.", and with that explanation Lucas and Robert went back to their studies.
Sadly, Lucas was a lot less proficient in the other elements so Robert's ego was saved for a bit. He learned all the beginner runes except for darkness for obvious reasons, not that he didn't want to but because it simply wasn't in his textbook. Darkness was the most destructive element even outperforming fire, but not many people dared to openly use it.